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St. Irene School in Warrenville to close after 68 years

St. Irene Catholic School in Warrenville will close at the end of the school year.

The Diocese of Joliet announced Thursday it is shutting down the school, citing low enrollment and financial challenges.

"The decision was made to ensure quality Catholic education in the Diocese of Joliet now and into the future," the news release from the diocese said.

At the weekly school Mass Friday morning, the Rev. Clive Otieno urged students to remember "it does not mean at all that if the school is no longer there, that we are no longer children of God."

"We have had the great opportunity of knowing and loving our school," he said, and the students will carry the spirit of St. Irene with them when they leave.

"At this time together, we are going to walk together with peace, we are going to pray together, and we are going to celebrate the life of St. Irene (school) because that spirit of St. Irene will never die. It will continue on."

St. Irene opened in 1952, according to the parish's website.

The diocese and the parish will provide a $500 grant for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years to current St. Irene students who will attend other Diocese of Joliet elementary schools.

In July 2019, after considering recommendations from a special task force, Bishop R. Daniel Conlon issued a decree about improving the state of Catholic schools in the diocese. The task force had reported elementary schools under the diocese' control were struggling. It spoke of enrollment declines, parishes struggling with financial burdens imposed by schools, and the unaffordability of tuition.

It called for paying immediate attention to schools with fewer than 150 students. According to the diocese, 110 students attended St. Irene in the 2019-20 school year.

The decree called for creating a special diocese fund to give grants to financially struggling schools. Parishes without schools were to be charged an assessment annually to support the fund, starting in July 2020.

The decree warned, however, that schools were to strengthen their finances so as to not perpetually rely on grants to get by.

St. Irene's website said it cost the school about $7,000 a year to teach a student, but tuition typically covered less than two-thirds of that cost.

Representatives of St. Irene's School and the diocese's schools office could not be reached for comment Friday.

The diocese closed St. Mary school in West Chicago in 2010.

St. Irene leader wins Principal of Year award

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